


Theatre of Cruelty

by 20thcenturyvole



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Brief Gore, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 06:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13048869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/20thcenturyvole/pseuds/20thcenturyvole
Summary: Statement of Martin Blackwood, regarding an attempt at team bonding that goes just horribly wrong.





	Theatre of Cruelty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flammenkobold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flammenkobold/gifts).



Click.

“Right. Oh-kay. Case number 01724— oh, no, wait, it’s Saturday now. Er, case number 0172502. Statement of Martin Blackwood regarding a... a live performance in the Beggar’s Playhouse, London. Statement recorded by subject. Well. By me. Martin Blackwood. Assistant archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.”

Martin’s finger hovered over the pause button, as he considered rewinding the tape and starting over. How many ums was that? That was crap. It wasn’t like he’d never given a statement before, or recorded one before. He could do better. Should do better. The hiss of the recorder and the hum of the Archive’s fluorescent lights seemed incredibly loud, but maybe that was because everything did, in the wee hours. Through the walls, he could faintly hear Tim banging about angrily in the tea room.

It was possible he was still in shock.

Right. No. Ridiculous. He wasn’t going to do this perfectly no matter how he tried, so he might as well get it down as well as he could. 

“So, to preface: things have been a bit tense at work, since the—since Jonathan left. I mean, it’s just me and Tim doing the archives work, now, and he’s really stressed out, and so am I if I’m being honest, but we’re handling it differently. Well, we’ve been arguing a bit. And I hate that. I don’t like things being so weird. So I thought, why not do something with Tim outside of work, you know? Go to the pub, maybe a show, decompress a bit. So we’re not always snapping at each other. We used to hang out, sometimes, but not recently.

“I didn’t think Tim would go for it, and he didn’t at first, but I wore him down. There’s a converted playhouse around the corner from his local that shows art films and stand up and the like – I know he takes people there on dates sometimes – and they’re showing this German comedy that’s supposed to be really good? So I told him all about it. Just kept trying. Eventually he sighed, and said, Can we go to the pub first? And that was exactly what I’d intended, so I said, Yeah! And he said, Fine, alright, okay. And he smiled a bit. So I was really looking forward to this Friday night.”

From three rooms away, he heard a crash from the tea room and Tim swearing. “Hang on,” he said, and he got up to see what had happened, but halted halfway to the door when he heard stomping footsteps. He backed up and the door opened. Tim, holding a mug of tea, glared at the tape recorder and thrust the mug into Martin’s hands. It was very hot, and a bit of tea slopped over the side and over his fingers. Martin adjusted his grip and said, “Oh, thank you. Are you alright? I heard a bang.”

Tim transferred his glare to Martin, said, “I kicked a chair. It’s fine,” and left, not quite slamming the door behind him.

Martin wiped his hand on his trousers and took a sip of the tea. It burned the roof of his mouth and scalded his throat on the way down, but he did feel almost immediately better. The tape deck was still recording. Where had he left off? Maybe he should have written it down first after all. He rewound, found his place, and carried on.

“So, we went to the pub after work on Friday. A couple of people came with us, actually – Liam from accounts and Sandra from artefact storage. It was nice! Not too tense. It was all going fine. We had a bite at the pub, we had a drink or two, and then it was time for the show, so off we went.

“Inside, it was packed. It’s got a couple of screens and stages, and I supposed a few things were on. We sort of had to elbow our way through. Now, the thing was, I’d got the tickets online and printed them off, and they didn’t actually say which room the screening was in? But it was hard to find anyone to ask. There were a lot of posters for the movie around, though, and the biggest crowd seemed to be clustered near the doors of the main stage, so I found a place in the queue and Tim went and got popcorn and we all shuffled in. There were two people on either side of the door checking tickets, a man and a woman, and I assumed that, worst case scenario, if it was the wrong theatre they’d tell us. It’s funny; I didn’t think about it much at the time, but they were wearing these... costumes, I suppose? Black leotards, like gymnasts might wear. Nothing eye-catching, but definitely not normal clothing. And, I mean, I noticed? But I didn’t think anything of it, and in hindsight, it’s weird that I didn’t think it was weird. 

“The man looked at our tickets and waved us through, and we found our seats, up near the back, sort of in the middle of the row. A good view for a movie, you know? The seats around us filled in pretty quickly, and soon enough the whole theatre was packed. It was pretty noisy with everyone chatting away, and that was when things got a bit awkward, because, without a pint and a couple of other people between us, Tim and I couldn’t find much to talk about. I’m usually good at talking, even if it’s just sort of at people, but this time the conversation just kept fizzling out. It wasn’t all Tim’s fault, either. Everyone around us seemed so noisy and happy, and I wanted to feel like that – just sort of melt into it, you know? But the more I tried, the more anxious and distracted I felt. After a while, Tim looked at his phone and said, Shouldn’t they have started by now? And I realised he was right. The movie was supposed to start at 8, and it was 12 past.

“At a quarter past, the lights dimmed, and the screen up front flickered. It showed a sort of abstract animation, like bubbling paint? Or maybe like the film itself was melting as it ran through the projector. The colours kept changing. And the music that was playing, it didn’t really have a tune; it was these long base notes, and a strange, whining hum. It went on for a long time, several minutes at least – sort of hypnotic. When the screen went dark and the lights came up, I realised there were three people on the stage now, and I’d been too busy looking at the bubbling screen to see them come on. It was the man and woman who’d been taking tickets at the door, and a woman in a top hat, who swept it off and bowed. I heard Tim groan next to me, and I felt really embarrassed that I’d taken us into the wrong theatre, but what could we do? We couldn’t leave without climbing over people. I looked at Tim, who rolled his eyes and shrugged, and we settled in.

“It was a magic show; that was clear enough. The first thing the magician did was pull a rabbit out of her hat. I didn’t think anyone actually did that anymore, but she held up her top hat, and showed the inside to the audience, and turned it upside-down and everything. Then she held it out in front of her, shouted, HUP!, and pulled out a brown rabbit by the scruff of its neck. The audience applauded, sort of half-heartedly. I mean, everyone knows about the false bottom trick, right? So then she handed this rabbit to the man, and reached into the hat and pulled out another brown rabbit. A bit of laughter this time, and more applause. She handed that one to the woman, and then pulled out a third rabbit, definitely more than the hat could hold, and then put it on the ground and pulled out another, and another, and then turned the hat upside-down and live rabbits just came sliding out and tumbling over each other in a pile on the stage. Wild applause, cheering. The magician took a bow, put the hat back on, and the assistants picked up rabbits by the armful and cleared them off the stage.

“While the assistants were in the wings, the magician took out a bag, sort of like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag? Big, and deep, with a metal clasp on top. She picked it up with both hands, like it was really heavy, and the noise of stuff clinking around inside was audible even from our seats near the back. She hauled it onto a small table – no tablecloth on it, just a plain little table – and set the bag down with a crash. People giggled. She opened it up, snapping the clasps smartly, and reached inside, rummaging around. She pulled out a wand, frowned, and tossed it over her shoulder. She pulled out a scarf, and it was one of those really long ones that’s tied to a whole long string of scarves, you know? So it just takes forever to come out. People laughed, but sort of groaned a bit too. She dropped it, reached in again, and pulled out a length of chain – and this, too, was really long and took forever to come out, though it made considerably more noise as it all fell on the ground in loops. At this point I was thinking, no wonder the bag was so heavy. It must have been absolutely packed with that chain, with the scarf and the wand just resting on top, right? Well, then she reached in again, and reached really far, until she was in it to the shoulder, and pulled out an actual bear trap. She frowned at it, threw it over her shoulder, and it snapped shut when it hit the ground. People gasped. Then she reached way, way in, both arms and then her head and chest until she was standing on tiptoes with her whole torso inside this bag that didn’t seem big enough to hold her. Then she emerged again, sans hat, hair a mess, but holding aloft a little silver key, which she held up for everyone to see before she put it in her pocket. Then she reached up and theatrically patted the top of her head, like she’d just noticed that her hat was gone. She took three steps back from the bag on the table, pointed at it and shouted, POH!, and the bag squirmed and then turned inside-out. It was mad. Balls spilled out everywhere, and bunting, and about a dozen pigeons that flapped noisily into the lighting rig near the ceiling. And her hat. She picked it up, rolled it up her arm onto her head, and got another ovation.

“Her assistants came on stage again and cleared up the mess, packing everything except the pigeons and the long chain back into the bag, even though it still looked like it shouldn’t all fit. It was a little performance in itself, with the magician standing off to one side drinking a glass of water, while the assistants dropped things and chased balls around and accidentally tied each other up in bunting – clowning stuff, I suppose, the kind of clumsiness that’s obviously carefully choreographed, but clever, like. And people were laughing even harder because the man and woman never stopped looking absolutely stone-faced. While the assistants were clearing the last few things off the stage, the magician wandered nonchalantly forward, still sipping her water. As the assistants bundled the bag and table away, the magician drained her glass, took her hat off again, and dropped the water glass inside. Then she turned the hat upside down – no glass fell out, for which there was a smattering of applause – and she held her hand out underneath it, shouted, HUP!, and an orange fell out into her open palm. She put the hat back on, and attempted to peel the orange with her fingernails, but it didn’t seem to be working. She wiped her hand on her trousers and held the by now slightly mutilated orange up to the spotlight. Then she pointed at it, shouted, POH!, and the orange squirmed and turned inside out, dropping peel to the floor and giving the magician a handful of segments, which she ate to general applause.

“Now her assistants came back onstage, wheeling in a tall glass tank, one big enough to hold a person. You can see where this is going, right? They set it in the middle of the stage, locked its wheels into place, and set a wooden stepladder against one side. The woman disappeared offstage and came back with a wide hose that she locked into place at the top of the tank, and it came on with a shriek and started blasting water into the tank – obviously pretty high-pressure. While the tank filled, the magician stripped off her jacket, boots, and jodhpurs; she was wearing the same black leotard as her assistants, underneath it. The last thing she took off was her top hat, which she handed to the man, along with the little silver key she’d taken from the doctor’s bag. There was a clinking sound from the other side of the stage, and the woman dragged the long loops of chain into the spotlight again. The man held out the top hat, and the magician shouted, HUP! The man pulled out a padlock, and used it to lock a section of chain around the magician’s ankles. He reached in again, and pulled out another padlock, and another, and another, and by the time the tall glass tank was filled, the magician was bound from neck to ankle in padlocked chains, with her arms bound at her sides. The man handed the hat and key to the woman, and then hefted the bound magician over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, ascended the stepladder, and unceremoniously tossed her into the tank. 

“The crowd gasped. She’d gone in upside-down, and sank to the bottom in a stream of bubbles. She looked pretty well stuck, with her head wedged in one corner and her feet in another – it was a narrow tank, not quite big enough for her upper body to lie flat. She was struggling with the chains, but for the moment, she also seemed to be struggling to get upright. A minute passed. The crowd was absolutely silent. You could hear the clink and thud of her chains against the inside of the tank, and the slosh of the water – even my breathing seemed loud. Another minute, and it was getting excruciating. I found myself holding my breath in sympathy. As she struggled, the magician seemed to be staring at her assistants, stood by with her hat and key. When the third minute passed without a single loop of chain coming loose, the man very deliberately put the key in his mouth and swallowed it.

“The magician squirmed and thrashed, and kicked hard off the side of the tank, but she didn’t make it to the top before the chains dragged her down. She did it again and this time the crown of her head seemed to break the surface. There were cheers. A third attempt, and she got a mouthful of air. People were chanting now, but even with the noise they were making, I still heard it perfectly when she used that breath to shout, under the water, POH!

“The man turned inside out. I mean – have you ever seen a video of a piece of popcorn popping in slow motion? Like that, except so much worse. The skin split, and organs and blood went spilling everywhere. I saw his ribs split and fan out like spreading fingers, and in two seconds he was a twitching heap of meat on the floor. Of course everybody started screaming. People down nearer the stage were stampeding for the exit, and some in the middle rows were climbing over each other. Still, I could see the stage, and I saw the woman reach into the meat and pull out the silver key. She walked over to the tank, reached up on tiptoes, and dropped it in, and in the midst of the whole packed theatre trying to escape, the magician in the tank freed herself.”

Martin took a deep breath. He was feeling a bit nauseous again, talking about it. The cup of tea had sat at his elbow long enough that it was almost lukewarm now, and he was able to gulp the rest of it down.

“We got out of the theatre as soon as we could do it without climbing over people, but that took a few minutes, and in the meantime the magician and her remaining assistant just wandered off. Nobody tried to stop them. They left the tank. And the meat. Erm. Follow up—“

“Follow up,” Tim snarled, leaning over him, and Martin jumped. He hadn’t heard the door open. “—Martin trotted right back here to report it all like a good archival assistant, having not been able to obtain witness reports from any of the other theatre goers because they were all too busy throwing up or haranguing the staff or calling the police.”

Martin, shaken, snapped, “You didn’t have to come back with me!”

Tim glared at him. “I was halfway to my flat before I started wondering what I’d find there. You were still badgering the witnesses when I came back. Maybe there’s a pile of meat on my living room floor, or a door that doesn’t go anywhere, or Jonathan Sims with a frying pan – I don’t fucking know, Martin, all right? But this shit is following us home, now!”

Martin gaped. His hands balled into fists. “You don’t have to tell me about work following us home!”

Tim went red. It made the corkscrew scar on his face stand out. 

They stood glaring at each other in silence, until Martin muttered, “Sorry. I just... wanted us to have something normal and fun.” 

Tim seemed to deflate. “I know. That’s what I’ve been trying to say: I don’t think we’re allowed, anymore.” 

Martin felt like arguing, but didn’t; still, his mulish silence apparently spoke for him. 

Tim folded his arms and looked around the room. “Look, I’ll wait in the tea room until you’re finished up. It’s almost two. I’ll look up the night buses.” 

He left. Martin watched the door swing slowly shut, and tried to regain his train of thought. “Follow up... will have to wait until tomorrow. Or, later today. Or Monday, because this is work, technically. I don’t know.” He sighed. “Statement ends.”


End file.
